Both Sides of the Blade review – uneven but honest depiction of middle-aged lust

We open with a couple Sara and Jean (Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon) enjoying themselves in the sea on a bucolic stretch of the French riviera. They appear to have found a sense of inner peace, rolling about freely in the waters, intimacy second nature to each other. Few filmmakers beyond Claire Denis are as adept at capturing such interpersonal intimacy. In her hands, the bodies and faces of actors become near-limitless canvases.

Both Sides of the Blade (listed in some quarters with the much limper title Fire) quickly shifts into something much more pained than this bucolic romantic ideal when, upon returning to Paris, Sara stumbles upon Francois (Gregoire Colin), her ex-lover and Jean’s former friend. It’s also revealed that Jean has spent time in prison, seemingly covering up for Francois, but the exact details are left tantalisingly unclear. Francois gets in touch with Jean, offering him a job as a rugby player agent, giving Sara the opportunity to rekindle their passions.

At its best, Both Sides of the Blade is a truthful and honest depiction of ugly and complex decisions of desire, lust, and passion – questions that become heightened in importance as one hits middle-age, when the time invested in a relationship ensures that deviations from its pre-set patterns are fraught with danger and trauma beyond just youthful heartbreak.

Given actors of this quality in the hands of an equally excellent director, there is only ever going to be a certain minimum quality level at play here, though for a director so comfortable with wordless exchanges of gesture and gaze from her actors, this is possibly Denis’ most actor-ly film, with plenty of opportunities for big shouting matches and tears in the film’s second half. Binoche plays Sara with creeping fear of the gravity of her decisions, yet unable to help herself – anxiety, guilt, desire and passion flashing across the lines of her face, filmed so often by Denis in looming close-up.

Elsewhere, Lindon carries much of the same bullishness that was apparent in Titane, but the bullishness disappears when he recognises the affair going on behind his back – his paternalism descends into fear in those bug eyes of his. As for Colin (once a picture of youth in Denis’ early films), he now appears as sly, mysterious, and a bit dangerous. The scenes between these three are combustible and rapt, capturing their angst as they make every potentially heartbreaking decision.

The film does sputter out in the final third, with the drama turning towards the melo-, which isn’t quite Denis’ best rhythm. There’s also a whole sub-plot with Lindon’s mixed-race teenage son, struggling at school and slipping into bad habits which seems to exist solely to give Lindon a big speech about the meaning of race in Modern France. It’s glib and awkwardly handled, even more so for the fact that Denis has handled race, politics and France’s poisonous colonial legacy with a deft touch in work like 35 Shots of Rum, White Material, or her masterpiece Beau Travail.

Still, Both Sides of the Blade remains a fine showcase for Denis’ actors, with Binoche ruling the roost, reminiscent most clearly of Let the Sunshine In, another Denis/Binoche collaboration that dealt with romance and desire in middle-age. Both Sides of the Blade is not quite so light on its feet, though – this is fine work, but easily one of Denis “lesser” films.

Both Sides of the Blade was screened as part of the Berlinale Film Festival 2022. It will be released in UK cinemas on 9 September.